@heramcleod: I posted about Target’s racist Halloween costume, and Russ showed up to explain that perhaps making Black people feel unwelcome is actually just smart business because we’re a “group who are thought to steal.” And somehow, in attempting to defend Target, he managed to demonstrate the entire point of my original post. This is why cultural competence matters. This is why representation matters. Because racial stereotypes don’t magically become legitimate when you call them a business strategy. Also, if Target’s goal was to drive Black customers away…why did they remove the costume and apologize? And if the answer is simply “Black people should shop somewhere else,” American history has some notes. We built our own thriving business districts when we weren’t welcome in white establishments. Some folks burned those down. So maybe the lesson here isn’t that Black people need to find somewhere else to shop. Maybe companies should stop treating Blackness like a problem to solve. #Target #RacialProfiling #CulturalCompetence #BlackHistory #RepresentationMatters

Hera McLeod | Author 📚

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Thursday 27 August 2026 12:58:54 GMT